when the universe is not enough
by Akrim
Summary: Various one shots for ShinRan #1 "My knuckles still pulse in pain though the adrenaline has long ebbed away and left me drained, tired and hopeless. I'm stuck in a dump I have no idea how to get out of again. I probably have no chance to get out, anyway. And yet, with the pulse of pain a pulse of longing beats inside of me, and I can't help wondering what it is I'm longing for."
1. Star-crossed lovers

**Star-crossed lovers**

It's not like I wanted things to end up this way – I'm not even sure _how_ things ended up this way – with hunched backs, bloodied knuckles and a distance we wouldn't cross anymore. Not in this life, anyway.

Not when I'm standing on one side and you on the other one.

My knuckles still pulse in pain though the adrenaline has long ebbed away and left me drained, tired and hopeless. I'm stuck in a dump I have no idea how to get out of again. I probably have no chance to get out, anyway. And yet, with the pulse of pain a pulse of longing beats inside of me, and I can't help wondering what it is I'm longing for.

My hands are battered and scarred, various breaks and uneven healing deformed them so much it's quite a miracle I can even still use them – in combat and in any other skill I need to possess. Of course, these hands are ruined for finer arts, arts as such that Shinichi loved performing so much when he was younger and still had the time and motivation for – like playing the violin. I wonder if I ever told him how much I loved listening to him play – what I'd give today to listen to him just one last time. What I'd do to have him perform at my funeral – if I ever received one, anyway.

My hands are unlike his will ever become and I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful he'll never cross the same bridge I crossed so long ago. Shinichi simply doesn't belong in this world (but I wonder, every night when I lie in bed, alone, only the darkness the witness of my warped mind, would he be killed by this world, or would he prosper – what with his canny genius brain, his ability to clinically analyze what lies in front of him and turn things in his favor. He'd be the perfect mercenary.)

But Shinichi is on the right side, and I can't help struggle keeping my head above the darkness trying to swallow me fully. And it's not like I haven't chosen this myself. Because I have.

I am where I wanted to be, so long ago. And I don't say I regret it. (But when I had to make a decision, the circumstances weren't the most favorable.)

And yet, here we are.

And maybe I regret one thing or the other.

And maybe I look for a way out, day and night, all the time, when no one is looking.

But then I end up here again, and again. And then again.

And I have to bear the look Shinichi gives me, time and time again, the disappointment, the pain, the guilt and hate, for I know he blames himself, and were he a lesser detective, he'd have closed both eyes and let me go again and again and again. But that's not Shinichi and maybe I'm grateful for it because it means I get to see him, even if it is behind steel bars.

It's when I wish I could go back in time and change things. I know Shinichi does the same. I can see it in his eyes, in his face, in his posture – it's written all over him, and sometimes, when I let myself feel for him, I play along with his ideas, his hopes, and then I sacrifice myself again and the whole thing starts from the beginning.

Sometimes, I believe I can see it in his face (the resignation, the bone-deep weariness) that he wants to give up, just give up hope, give up his love for me because, face it, I'm a lost cause either way, but then it is Shinichi and that boy never gives up – no matter what. And I continue playing along with bruised skin and broken bones and bloodied hands and I take the fall for yet another of my fellow criminals. Because as much as I still love him, those people need me more.

And in the end it's all just a game that the both of us play all the time, a game that will end with my death or his and I know he's aware of this, too. After all, he's the smarter one out of the two of us.

By now, I have internalized the sound of his footsteps, the quiet heavy gait that is so uniquely _him_ that I can't contain the excitement instantly rushing through my veins knowing that the game has just restarted yet again.

And then, with a severe look on his face, he stops in front of my cell.

"Ran."


	2. In the wasp's nest

Warning: Watch out for not too detailed torture.

* * *

In the wasp's nest

_Why?_

_Why didn't you tell me?_

_._

Aoko didn't know when was the last time her father and she spent some time together outside their house – maybe that was why the day had been even more special to her. They went hiking just outside of Tokyo, took lots of photos, bought a lot of souvenirs where possible – though she could have lived without the needless teasing of her father about Kaito and her. It wasn't like they were an item – Aoko had no idea _what_ they were. But still, the outing had been great and the last opportunity before she left for police academy all over the country for the next two years.

It was already dark when they made their way back to their car to start the short journey back to their home.

"Are you sure it was alright to go without Kaito-kun?"

"Mou, Otou-san! How many times do I have to tell you that _Bakaito_ wouldn't have had time anyway! It's fine!"

She rolled her eyes in annoyance. As if she couldn't live without Kaito…

"I'm just saying. You two will be separated for at least two years and who knows where Kaito-kun will be by that time."

Her father may have tried to conceal his purpose behind playful words but Aoko knew what he actually wanted – Kaito was probably the only guy he'd accept as Aoko's boyfriend and if she didn't make a real job of it, he'd be off market faster than she could even blink. Of course, Aoko knew that. But tying Kaito down to her for the next two years with barely any contact just wasn't fair to him. Besides, Aoko knew Kaito wanted to go abroad and become a famous magician, so their shared future was basically impossible anyway.

"Anyway, I'm hungry. Let's find a konbini, get some dinner and go home. I still need to finish a few things before I'll leave next week."

"Of course," her father grumbled amusedly and followed closely behind her.

They were still inside a forest just close to the parking lot they left their car when Aoko heard some rustling that _could_ be an animal – they _were_ inside a forest after all. She stopped and looked in the direction, and though she wasn't even scared of being face to face with a boar, her father felt nervous.

"Come on Aoko, we're nearly there. The boar population is quite big in these parts and I'd rather not meet one today."

But somehow, call it instinct, a sixth sense, whatever, she couldn't just turn around and leave because what if it wasn't a boar but a hurt person? Lately, a lot of people were vanishing, and Aoko, who applied for an apprenticeship in Special Forces, couldn't just look away and walk away from someone who might need her help.

Before her father could reach out to her to drag her back forcefully if he had to, she had already made her way in the direction she last heard the suspicious rustling.

"Aoko!" her father called in alarm. "I'm telling you, let's go back. If you get shredded by a boar now your dream of entering the Special Forces will be zero."

"Shhh!" she hissed in his direction and made her way forward.

In the moment she took another step forward, something fell into her out of the darkness and she nearly jumped out of her skin screaming, when she realized the object was quite heavy with heavy irregular breathing and had a form of a human being.

Putting her arms around the person, she slowly sunk down to the ground and took the probably wounded person with her.

"Aoko!" her father hissed and ran to her with quick steps.

.

_Maybe I would have been fine._

_I could have fled before he got me, at least. If I had known._

_My body wouldn't hurt like this, it wouldn't burn from the inside, I wouldn't embrace death so much just so the pain would finally stop._

_Every breath felt like needles in my lungs, every beat of my heart felt like a new sting of a wasp. Oh and there were so many wasps._

_._

"We need to take her to a hospital, now!"

Aoko nearly panicked when she found the young girl in the too big ranger jacket with her face half bashed in – it was the first time she saw a living, breathing girl beaten, bloody and half-dead like this. It scared the hell out of her.

"N…o…," the girl rasped between labored breaths with a weak voice. "They'll … find me. They'll … know…"

Aoko looked up to her father worriedly. No hospital? Out of the question. But whoever did this _wanted_ to make sure she wouldn't survive.

"What's your name, little girl?"

Aoko felt like the girl with a face too much like her own – if she overlooked the blood, the unhealthy colors and all the swelling that is – would have run away from them too if she had had the strength to do it. And she had so many questions to ask the girl and so little time and chances.

The girl watched Aoko's father wearily, one eye too swollen to open and the other bloodshot.

"Otou-san! We have no time for this! She looks a lot like me, let's just admit her under my name. No one will know who she really is. She will be safe and if we take care of her until she is fine enough, then no one will hurt her."

Her father shook his head. "No. That kind of fraud will get you in a lot of trouble."

Aoko nearly jumped out of her skin in anger because they had no _time_ and this girl wouldn't even tell them her name so what _choice_ did they even have? Who cared about some fraud when that girl was in that much trouble, in that kind of danger?!

"You're Mouri Ran, aren't you? I overheard Megure talking about your kidnapping and no one has been able to find you."

The girl seemed to shrink even more, her breath catching in her throat in fear of what that knowledge might do.

"Hey, it's ok. Don't worry. My father is keibu of the Kaitou Kid Task Force. We're on your side."

Aoko tried her best to calm the scared girl, a girl her own age if she wasn't mistaken but there was something odd about that, something she couldn't place her finger on quite yet.

"I know a hospital we can take her to."

Her father had a look on his face Aoko had barely ever seen – grave and serious and maybe a tad bit scared. Because who would do something like that to a karate champion, the daughter of an ex-police officer, the daughter of the notorious Sleeping Kogoro – only someone who wasn't scared of the law. Someone who aimed to kill her because that person was too sure no one would find out their identity anyway.

It left a bitter taste in Aoko's mouth.

.

_Why?_

_There was just one question flowing mindlessly through my head – why?_

_Why didn't you simply tell me? Couldn't it have saved me? Wouldn't it have prevented my kidnapping? I could have fought him, I'm sure, if I'd just known who those people were. I would have, at least, been more cautious of anyone approaching me on the street. SIe would have known what to tell them – and what not to tell them._

_Why did you let me die?_

_._

"Mouri Ran?"

It was the summer before she would officially start her karate career – she was good and it was something she loved doing. Of course, it probably wouldn't always be an option for her, so she also decided to study business and teaching in university so she had the possibility to run her own dojo or at least be employed at one. Teaching was something she could imagine doing once her own career was impossible to pursue and teaching children and older people what she loved, was even better.

She was on the way to meet Sonoko to go shopping – on Sonoko's insistence – because once Ran was too busy with her career there would no longer be time for that so they needed to do it now, in abundance really.

When the male voice, which she swore she had heard before somewhere, called out to the, she stopped and turned around.

She was already in Shibuya, next to Shinjuku probably the busiest street in Tokyo, so she had some trouble to localize the person who the voice belonged to. When she found no one, she shrugged it off as her imagination in the whirlwind of people, noises and all the advertisements screaming above her.

But before she could take another step forward, she was roughly pulled aside by an arm that had no right to touch her – be it her arm or anywhere else. But there were too many people and though her instincts screamed at her to kick this person to hell and back, she didn't. Instead, turned around sharply to face the person who had the audacity to grab her like that but when she faced the man dressed in black in the middle of summer, with sunglasses on his nose and the hat on his head, she halted. There was something incredibly suspicious about this man, and may she say, dangerous. Not that she was scared – because she wasn't.

"I have a few questions about Kudou Shinichi. Do you mind coming with me?"

Shinichi? He knew something about Shinichi?

Her first impulse was to just call Shinichi and tell the man to wait so that she let him talk to her friend himself – wouldn't it spare them all so much time and effort? But there was something that kept her from doing it. Oh – and she'd forgotten her phone at home, anyway.

"I don't know. Maybe we can talk in the café over there?"

Because she knew about the dangers of getting into the car of strangers and never getting out alive anymore. Moreover, he wanted to know something about Shinichi – shouldn't he just ask Shinichi himself? And where had she seen him before? Did she know him, by any chance?

"There is something highly confidential you might want to know about Kudou Shinichi that I cannot discuss in a public place."

Highly confidential? But why would he want to talk to her about something like that? But maybe it's something about that case Shinichi was working on that will help him solve it. Yeah, maybe she could actually help him get back sooner.

"Alright."

Despite the queasy feeling, Ran followed him telling herself that she could beat him anytime she wanted – she was a karate champ, after all. And she knew there were stronger people but she was smart _and_ strong and firmly believed she could get out of any situation anyway. She'd be fine. Even more if she could help Shinichi in any way.

And maybe Shinichi was in trouble and this guy wanted to tell her – why ever he would want to tell her of all people – and she would be the one to help Shinichi get out of this trouble. There were just too many possibilities.

She followed the man to the black car parked next to the street just a few meters away and when the door fell closed behind her, she couldn't help feeling doomed all of a sudden.

.

_I shouldn't have followed him into the car but how was I supposed to know that nowadays everyone who wanted to know something about Shinichi had deadly intentions? How was I supposed to distrust this man so much to just run away from him? He may not have dragged me into the car had she declined his wish to talk but he may have done that later, right? On my way home, or any other time when there weren't so many people around._

_If Shinichi had let me know, I wouldn't have fallen into their trap. If I'd just known, I could have acted as if I never knew you in the first place, as if you'd not come back for a long time – I wouldn't have confirmed their suspicions that you were still alive. _

_But how was I supposed to know that?_

_No one ever told me._

_._

When she opened her eyes – and _damn_ when had she closed them? – her head felt groggy and her eyes barely opened.

"Has the bird finally awoken, huh?"

The voice grated at her nerves and she looked up with confusion written all over her face. She had hair in her face but when the arm that she wanted to use to brush it away didn't lift like expected, Ran realized she was restrained to a chair – and that was when the panic hit her full force.

"Who are you? Where am I? What do you want with me?!"

She felt angry and scared and her heart was beating way too fast for her liking.

The man was the same that approached her in Shibuya – with the way too light hair and way too sadistic grin.

"Now," he leaned threateningly over her, putting his hands on the armrests of the chair she was sat on, "let's talk business."

Her hands were bound behind her back and no matter if it was rope or handcuffs, her mind was too panicked right now to even think about getting out of it and fight him.

The closer he came, the further away she tried to move but the chair had only so much space.

"Where is Kudou Shinichi?"

His voice was like poison – sweet and deadly.

"I can safely assume he's alive, so tell me where he is."

Was Shinichi supposed to be dead? Was this person supposed to believe that Shinichi was dead?

There was something heavy and suffocating spreading through her body, freezing her mind and tongue.

"If you don't tell me where he is, I'll kill you, tear you apart and after I'll find that bastard, I'll send you to him bit by bit before I'll kill him, too. Do you understand me?"

There was so this small thought in her mind telling her she wouldn't get out of here alive anyway and it absolutely didn't matter if she told him what he wanted to know or not. It would only further endanger Shinichi and she couldn't have that – aside from the fact that she didn't know where Shinichi was either way.

"I don't know where Shinichi is." She could lie, tell him that Shinichi was dead, but she was here, right? She wouldn't have talked to him if she hadn't believed that. "And even if I knew I wouldn't tell you."

Ran didn't know where her courage came from – or maybe it wasn't courage but rebellion before she was brutally murdered but then again, she wouldn't go down without a fight.

"Is that so?"

His eyes took on a dangerous glint she didn't like one bit before she was roughly dragged across the room.

.

_What have I done?_

.

"She lost consciousness, Otou-san. And her wounds look so horrible. She needs medical treatment right away!" Aoko nearly screamed the last part, pressing the hurting girl to her body.

At least, they were in the car now with her father frantically turning the engine on and finally, finally getting on the street.

"Don't worry. There is a military hospital not too far from here. She'll be safe there."

Though his words felt reassuring, his voice was not.

"Who did you talk to?"

"Megure." Again the grave voice. "He's the only one I can trust in this case and he'll make sure her family knows without alerting anyone who isn't supposed to know."

Aoko wondered about it though – she understood that her family needed to know, they must be sick with worry, but was it really safe to let them know? To let a police inspector know? When they didn't know who was after her and who wasn't? Who they _could_ trust?

But maybe, in order to get her admitted to that hospital, they needed to tell some people.

_._

_Why?_

.

Her lungs were literally on fire, her back hurt in a way she's never felt before and she struggled against her restraints but her hands wouldn't come loose and no matter how much she pushed against the hand keeping her head under water, it didn't budge a tiny bit. It was always when she stopped struggling that he pulled her out again, had her gasp for breath twice before he dunked her head under water again.

Ran had stopped counting how many times this game had continued already and she was close to collapse by now.

The water was too salty to just swallow and there was no air, no air at all. Her lungs screamed for oxygen, little needles piercing her whole body in agony.

He puller her out again when black dots started dancing across her vision and she gasped and coughed and shivered in pain and fear and panic.

Just a second later that dressed in black asshole grabbed her hair and pulled her to his face.

"So, you still don't know where Kudou Shinichi is?"

It was false courage running through her veins. But it was courage anyway. Or maybe it was plain stupidity.

She spit him in his face. "Fuck you."

It was the first time he hit her. "Bitch!" Then plunged her head back under water.

She tasted metal in a second of lucidity between the panic and burning of her lungs – he must have broken her nose with a single punch. She still heard the crunch, the cracking of the bone.

The pain was numbing, stinging, but worse was still the lack of oxygen and the strength quickly leaving her – not that it did her any good but Ran wasn't a quitter.

When he pulled her head out the next time, she coughed wildly and took in big gulps of air.

"Ready to talk now, bitch?"

"I don't-" another deep breath. "… know where Shinichi is." _Start lying, Ran._ "I haven't seen him for many months now."

Only Ran wasn't good at lying. And he seemed to see through her lie.

Her head was plunged into the water again. And again. And again.

_._

_It is a miracle I'm still alive. _

_Of course, it meant nothing if I didn't find help soon – and who should I go to anyway? Who could I trust? Who could I even tell what happened to me? Shinichi? What good would that do? My family? Would they even understand? Did I even understand what I got myself into?_

.

"Nakamori-san. Please understand that I cannot go into detail but Mouri-san will undergo an emergency surgery soon to stabilize her condition."

Aoko watched her father nod in silence.

An emergency surgery? Well, she figured as much given the girl's injuries but hearing it from a doctor gave the whole thing a different perspective, made it too real. Aoko just hoped she'd survive the surgery and have no lasting health restrictions.

Aoko slid down on the wall and made herself as comfortable as she could be while waiting for the doctors to finish the surgery – though Aoko was sure she had a long night ahead of her.

"What are you doing?"

Looking up to her father with a raised brow, she patted the spot next to her.

"I'm getting comfortable waiting. I promised her to protect her. I'm not going to break my promise now. No one will go past this point without my agreement."

Her father deadpanned. "Aoko, I understand your feelings but Mouri is safe here. If she survives the surgery, she will be cared for here. Soon, Megure will arrive with her family, you'll only be in the way."

"Say what you want, I'm staying."

Her father sighed and Aoko knew that was when he gave up because he knew his daughter was as big-headed as he was and when she decided something, not even he could change her mind.

"Fine. But don't annoy her family, got it? It'll be hard enough for them."

Aoko rolled her eyes. "You think so little of me. You wound me."

"And you spend too much time with Kaito-kun."

_._

_Why?_

_Why me?_

.

She barely felt her body anymore – there was just a burning inside of her overpowering every other thing she could be feeling.

"So, I'll ask you one last time."

He grabbed her by her hair again and looked into her eyes – or what was left of them, of her face in general really.

"Where is Kudou Shinichi?"

By now Ran had told him time and time again that she didn't know, even when he broke her fingers, one by one, even when he kicked her and hit her, over and over again. Her answer was always the same – silence or that she didn't know. It wasn't even a lie, she really didn't know where Shinichi was and for the first time she maybe understood why Shinichi hadn't told her anything. She might have fallen to the pressure, to the unbearable pain and told that guy Shinichi's whereabouts. He just protected himself.

Ran surely didn't condescend him for that, it was only natural for human beings to protect themselves and though it didn't feel much like Shinichi to throw her to the wolves, she wondered if she knew Shinichi at all anymore anyway.

After all, he didn't tell her anything. Whatever trouble he had gotten himself in, she didn't know a single thing about it. And this trouble sure seemed deadly to her.

She wondered what she'd do in his stead. Would she keep quiet like he did? Or would she tell him? What did it mean to tell him and what did it meant not to tell him? Which was more dangerous?

She wished she'd find the answers to those questions but thinking felt like she was walking through thigh-deep mud, slow, so agonizingly slow, and cold, and suffocating.

"I see." The whitehaired man said and pulled something out of the pocket of his black coat but Ran's sight was too blurry to see what it was. "Then I have no more use for you."

He grabbed her again, like all the time, and she wanted to riot but she also just wanted to die and make the pain stop.

He pushed something into her mouth and started choking on some water again, only it wasn't salty like the one in the tub. She swallowed what she could and spit out the rest.

He shoved her roughly back on the ground and watched her for a second. Then a second longer. She just kept breathing irregularly, desperately keeping the pill beneath her tongue because she was sure it was some kind of poison.

She didn't know how long he watched her – it could have been hours for all she knew.

"Damn that bitch Sherry."

With that he turned around and left and once Ran heard the roaring of an engine, she spit it out, coughing the bitter stinging taste away. Whatever he wanted to see, she doubted he saw it.

And she must have lost consciousness because she woke up to unbearable pain, something she's never felt before, as if her bones were melting, as if every single one cell in her body exploded and burned and it went as suddenly as it came but the heat never quite subsided.

Wheezing, she tried to get up because she needed to leave and she needed to leave now – that guy wasn't someone who left business unfinished and if she wasn't dead that meant he'd come back to make _sure_ she was dead. So she needed to leave now. No matter what. She could collapse later.

He had taken off her handcuffs when he broke her fingers, so she was free of those at least. Back then she had been too drained to fight him – he must have known that too or he was just too sure of his own abilities to overwhelm her. Whichever it was, it spared her a lot of trouble right now.

Her right arm was basically useless by now but somehow she was able to push upwards with just her left arm and though she barely had any strength left, she stood up on wobbly legs and leaning on the wall, she made her way out of the room into a narrow corridor.

There was constant static noise in her head as if she were in a plane but somehow she heard the steady tick-tock of something that might have been a clock and Ran followed the noise. Just around the corner, to the right from the corridor was an open doorway and she would have stumbled in shock had she not been leaning on the wall.

"Oh no…" she wailed in agony, watching the blood with tears in her eyes. Yet another person had to die – because of her?

She sunk down, all the strength having left her body, and let the darkness overwhelm her.

_._

_I don't know why I grabbed that dead person's jacket. I don't know how I made it out of the hut. _

_I just remember the pain, the agony._

_The unbearable question – why?_

_The unstoppable tick-tock of the bomb that should have, by all means, killed me._

_I don't know how many guardian angels I must have had who got me out of there, but I should be grateful. I know I should – I'm alive after all. But at what cost?_

_At what cost?_

.

Aoko knew she shouldn't be here, with these people who were hoping and begging and wishing for Mouri Ran to wake up and smile at them as if nothing ever happened. But the girl had her head nearly bashed in, her right cheekbone broken in different positions, her fingers all broken, several ribs broken, with sea water in her lungs – her surgery had taken over eight hours. She was placed in an artificial coma due to her severe injuries.

"I'm sorry to speak so bluntly but I think you need to bury her here. Let her officially die or let her be officially missing but don't take her home when she wakes up again." Though it was still unclear if she'd ever woke up again. "Ran-san was incredibly scared of whoever did this to her. If whoever did this found out she's still alive, I'm sure she'd be in great danger."

"Now, listen you! I'm not going to bury my daughter or leave her somewhere! She's going home with me-"

"Mouri-san," Aoko interrupted. "I don't know what it feels like what you're going through and I also can't imagine it. And I'm so sorry this happened to you. But whoever did this wasn't some amateur. From what I gathered, your daughter is a karate champion, isn't she? She would have been able to easily fight off an amateur. But what happened here was meticulously planned. This wasn't the work of an amateur. Don't you agree with me? We have to protect her with everything we have. Thus, she cannot go home with you. She cannot live as Mouri Ran until whoever did this is safely apprehended. We need to pretend Mouri Ran was killed in that explosion or at least that she's still missing."

"Anata, I hate to admit this but Nakamori-san is right. We can still see Ran but we need to make sure she will not be hurt again," his kind of ex-wife intercepted softly.

Aoko turned her look from the angry father to the lost in thought boy who had come with the couple. They introduced him as Edogawa Conan, their free-loader. She expected him to trash around and scream and cry, or be distant, but he looked like he was contemplating something, deep in thought, and yet at the same time he looked incredibly pained. As if not the girl was hurt but he himself.

It was interesting to watch him watch the sleeping girl, sitting over her like a guardian angel, protecting her from whatever else might come her way. Unfortunately, it was too late.

_._

_I can't go back. A__nd I cannot undo things. And I've been thinking a lot lately._

_I think I still love you, anyway._

_Shinichi._

.

"Ran."

It was the first time in a month that Ran heard his voice. It was also the first time after her confession.

It felt weird, to say the least.

Last time there was just the kiss on the cheek, just his words confirming that they were dating now.

Now, it felt like they were worlds apart.

"How are you, Ran?"

He had left a thousand messages, asking how she was, what happened, what she remembered, how he wished he could see her but he figured it might be too dangerous now. And Ran just didn't know what to do with all that.

Her wounds were healing, slowly but steadily. She had been dismissed from the hospital just two weeks ago, one week after she woke up from the coma. The swelling in her brain had gotten down enough for her to wake up.

She was still in pain, that was undeniable, and maybe it was the invisible pain that was the worst – it were the nights, silent and cold and dark, when the claws of fear would steal all the oxygen and she was back in that room, her head was back under water and she couldn't wake up, couldn't take in enough oxygen to just _breathe_.

"Fine."

It took her a while to find out if she wanted to talk to him, to see him.

It wasn't Shinichi's fault, what happened to her. It would never be his fault but she was scared and while she didn't blame him, he was the reason all that had happened. That one was irrefutable.

It took her two weeks in Aoko's room alone with her thoughts and only occasional chats with Aoko's father to find her courage again to actually call Shinichi and tell him what she knew, tell him what she did and that he was in danger. Maybe more so than she was. She'd ever be.

"Ran, I'm so sorry this-"

"I told him you're alive, Shinichi. Someone who thought you're dead knows now that you're not."

She felt bad, so bad for getting him into deeper trouble than he needed. She didn't want him to be in danger, she wanted him right next to her, safe and sound, but if he had such enemies that was just wishful thinking. Nothing more.

"It's alright, Ran. Can you describe what he looked like?"

"A tall man dressed all in black with long white hair."

She heard him gasp over the phone and Ran closed her eyes in frustration. So, he knew that person? He knew who that was? Why was that guy looking for Shinichi? Why did he think he was dead?

"I'm so sorry you got dragged into my mess, Ran. I can't apolo-"

"Do you know him, Shinichi? Do you know who that was?"

Ran was glad she was lying on Aoko's bed because her head started spinning again, as if she was airborne and the wind was blowing her in every direction and she had no control and everything was escalating.

"I do."

The doctor told her that she wouldn't be able to fully use her right hand anymore. She would probably be able to hold a pen and write, albeit it wouldn't be as precise, as pretty, anymore. She might have trouble when fighting, too, but thankfully karate also relied on kicks so she should be fine in that regard. Even if her career was over before it even started.

"Ran, I wish I could tell you more about this organization but I-"

"I told him you're alive. Not on purpose but he knows now. And he kept asking me where you are. I don't blame you for not telling him. I think if I had known I would have told him after a while. So it was better that I hadn't known. That I still don't know. I'm sorry I got you into more mess."

She had tears in her eyes and her voice broke in the end, this wasn't how she imagined her call with him.

"Don't be, Ran. Don't be. I'm just glad you're alive, Ran. I promise they won't hurt you again, I promise, Ran."

He sounded as if he was crying too. Crying for her.

"But it doesn't matter if he thinks that you're alive, does it now, Shinichi?" She didn't mean to sound as if she was blaming him, because she wasn't. "He gave me some kind of poison and I thought for a second it'd kill me. But it didn't. And I've kept thinking about it, you know? Once all the swelling went down and I looked into my face, past the bruises and the broken bones, I think I look younger. I lost a few centimeters in height, too. Nothing too significant, but it's visible if you look closely. And I think you've figured it out, too, haven't you, Shinichi?"

There was silence at the other end of the phone.

"I was able to spit it out but of course the pill had dissolved a bit by that time. So my body absorbed some of its effects and I shrunk. And if that is the same way you were shrunk, if you had been given a pill to swallow that was actually meant to kill you, then this man in black thinks now that the pill is useless. I don't know if he'll believe that the one you were given was just as much a dud as mine but he won't associate the drug with shrinking people. He was already long gone when I did."

At least, she hoped he was. There were periods of blankness in her memory. But she was quite certain that he had left before she shrunk – besides, her shrinking was barely visible anyway.

"It's okay, though. For now, I don't want to hear the truth. I just think that you should be safe for now. It's too improbable for him to linking the drug to shrinking people."

"Ran, I-"

"Let's meet again, Shinichi. When my face is back its normal color. Going outside as Nakamori Aoko should be safe for now. So let's meet then."

"I… ok… I think that should work."

"I miss you, Shinichi."

"I miss you, too."


End file.
